Roseland Surgeries October 2016 Newsletter

Just a reminder that Flu Vaccination Clinics are currently underway. We have a few slots left here and there with appointments available at all three surgery sites through October to the beginning of November.

Please don’t wait for your invitation letter – book your appointment as soon as you can. Your GP recommends a flu jab if you are over 65 years of age. We are also keen to target anyone who is immunosuppressed, pregnant, a healthcare/social care worker or in receipt of Carer’s Allowance. As in previous years, if you suffer from a disease of the heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, nervous system or are affected by asthma or diabetes, you should also have the jab.

Other organisations may approach you offering to provide an alternative service, but please remember they will not have access to your medical records and cannot give other immunisations, such as those to protect you again pneumonia, which are often given at the same time.

Shingles Vaccinations 2016

The Dept of Health continue their programme of offering vaccinations to certain age groups and this year if you are either 70, 71, 72, 73, 78 or 79 as at the 1st September 2016, you are eligible for the vaccination.

If you would like to have this important immunisation and are in one of the eligible age groups, please ask at reception for a suitable appointment with the Practice Nurse.

Our NEW telephone system

Our new telephone system has been ‘live’ now for a few weeks and hopefully, patients are getting used to the slightly different system. One of the first things that you will encounter is a message welcoming you to The Roseland Surgeries, with an option to press 1 to go directly to the Reception Team or press 2 to go straight through to Dispensary. There is a reminder on the message that if you are calling with an emergency, i.e chest pain or shortness of breath, to put the phone down and dial 999.

Some patients have found this change annoying, but we hope that the advantages of a new system will sway you. To put these into context, I would like to explain why we actually changed the system in the first place. There were a number of factors as follows:-

The new system will cost the surgery significantly less than the old one (and we mean thousands of pounds less not hundreds!)

The new system ensures that the reception lines are kept available for patients – previously, if a member of the team needed to dial out from the surgery, they could potentially take a reception line to make that call. This has now been addressed in that each member of the team has their own number to call out on – which means that patients have improved access.

Equally, when you ‘phone and get the welcome message, you know that your call has been received – you might have to hold if the receptionist is busy, but you can choose to hang on. This is much more satisfactory than either calling and hearing an engaged tone, or worse still, calling and no-one answering (because they were busy with someone at the desk, for example).

Another major advantage is that we can transfer your call from one branch to another without the need for you to call that branch. So, for example, if you needed to speak to a doctor and you called Portscatho, but the GP was at that time at St Mawes, previously you would have had to put the ‘phone down and make another call – and so incur two call charges. This way, we can transfer you directly to whatever branch we need to, and you will only have been charged once.

We know that any change takes a while to ‘bed in’ and we have tweaked things a little here and there. However, we hope that improved access on the telephone (and the financial savings as well) will mean that you receive a much more improved service all round.

Driving under the influence of drugs and/or prescription medicines:

It is illegal in England and Wales to drive with legal drugs in your body if it impairs your driving ability. It is also an offence to drive if you have over the specified limits of certain drugs in your blood and you haven’t been prescribed them.

If you are concerned that the medication you have been prescribed is affecting your ability to drive, do please talk to your doctor. You can drive after taking certain drugs if you’ve been prescribed them and followed advice on how to take them by a healthcare professional – AND as long as they aren’t causing you to be unfit to drive even if you’re above the specified limits. The list of medication that may affect driving is as follows:-

If you are unsure whether your medication is in one of these drug groups, please ask Lynn, our Dispensary Manager for advice.

Accessible Information Standards

From 31 July 2016 GP Practices must follow the Accessible Information Standard by law. This aims to ensure that disabled people have access to information that they can understand and they receive any communication support that they might need. We will be gathering information on specific communication needs of patients and recording it within medical records.

All new patients joining the practice will be asked about this, and we will gather information on our existing list of patients as they are seen. If you have any specific needs you would like to inform us of, for example you need letters sent to you in large print, or need an interpreter or sign language, please inform our staff.

Do you need help to stop smoking?

You may wonder why your GP or nurse so often ask ‘Do you smoke ?’ Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in England (79,100 in 2014) – greater than those caused by obesity, alcohol, suicide, traffic, illegal drugs and HIV combined – and has consequences primarily (but not exclusively) for cancers of the trachea, bronchus and lungs, coronary heart disease and respiratory disease, including COPD and asthma. The annual cost to the NHS for dealing with smoking related illness and disease is in the region of £3-5 billion. Approximately 70% of smokers want to stop, and 30% will try each year, but only 2-3% will succeed. Relapse rates from quit-smoking attempts are high: one in three within two days, with most relapsing within the first eight days.

Evidence shows that having support to stop smoking is crucial and our Practice Nurses can help you with this. We have very good success rates (far better than if you try to quit on your own) and we’re very happy to help anyone who would like our help!

Additionally, the NHS Smoking Helpline is an excellent source of practical advice and support on smoking and giving up. Friendly helpline advisers can also provide details of your local NHS Stop Smoking Service, and information packs. Lines are open daily from 7am – 11pm. Call 0800 169 0 169 (for deaf and hard of hearing people, please use textphone 0800 169 0 171). Alternatively, if you would like specialist advice relating to smoking and pregnancy, call the NHS Pregnancy Smoking Helpline on 0800 169 9 169. Lines are open daily 12 noon – 9pm.

Cornwall Healthy Weight Programme 2017

We are very pleased to announce that the Healthy Weight Programme is starting up again on 9th January 2017 in Falmouth from 6 pm to 8 pm.

This programme is part of the Cornwall Health Promotion Service offering support for individuals and groups. Their aim is to improve health and wellbeing by actively promoting and supporting increased physical activity, healthy eating and effective weight management. Patients who would like to join the programme can self-refer to the team either by phone (01209 313419) or by accessing the website: www.cornwallhealthyweight.org.uk